Eight in the Bed and the Little One Said
by starofoberon
Summary: Response to 10/22 CCOAC Fortune Cookie Prompt. Team-centric. "Roll over! Roll over!"


Usual disclaimers, yada yada, long live Ed Bernero, CBS, and the production staff of Criminal Minds, except I do want my JJ back ...

In response to the Fortune Cookie prompt of October 22nd,

"Give him/her an inch, and he/she will take a mile."

**Eight in the Bed and the Little One Said ...**

_Incident Report_

It would take too long to explain how the whole team from this elite unit of the FBI came to be rolled in coats, blankets, and three nasty-smelling sleeping bags we scrounged from the storage room in that small cabin near our westernmost rangers' station.

Just take my word on it, OK?

Nothing in the way of beds, just one room, the power was off, but there was water and a toilet and lots of firewood, and we were all pleasantly surprised that the water heater ran on natural gas and there was unlimited hot water. I think a couple of those rough, tough agents almost swooned in ecstasy at the notion of a hot shower.

It had not been what you'd call a real good day for them. They were tired and cold and just generally running on a couple frayed nerves, and this hysterical broad from their HQ kept yapping at them every fifteen minutes or so. They were taking it in turns to answer the cell phone and suck up her abuse and just keep repeating politely, _No, ma'am, we'll let you know as soon as there's any progress_, and you could see the hair turning gray on all of them when it was their turn.

Finally this grouchy guy in a suit frowned at the screen of his phone and asked where the best place was for cell tower coverage around here, and I told him the gazebo on Cedar Ridge Trail. Then he said where was the worst, and I said this crappy old cabin, you can't get spit here, and he looked at the others and they all agreed that the cabin sounded like a great option for spending the night.

And Senior Ranger Elton said for me to go with them and make sure they had everything they needed (except what they wanted the most, something called an _unsub_, maybe a sandwich? I'm not sure and I was too embarrassed to ask them).

So there we were.

I'm night shift anyway, so I just snuggled down with my thermos and my walkie-talkie and kept one eye on the fire and read this book about alien abductions. The seven agents ate the food that we brought from the station, took turns communing with the shower, then wrapped themselves in what was there and lined up like Oscar Mayer wienies in front of the fire and settled down to go to sleep. Gender didn't matter because these guys were wrapped up so heavy they made an Eskimo look like a beach bunny, if you get my drift.

Phaedra, I don't know if you know her, that psycho brown tabby cat that Ranger Nicholls left here last spring, wandered in and settled down by the fire, too.

Well, after a while, the agents were all snoring away, and Phaedra was really enjoying that fire. She just rolled, and stretched, and she braced her little paws against the back of the leftmost agent, young guy, skinny, with deep set eyes and long, thin fingers. And you know how cats are. She stretched out a little longer and pushed a little harder, and the sleeping agent just rolled to the right a little ways. Then Phaedra pressed her advantage and did the same thing again, and he obligingly rolled over again.

The leftmost agent's bony elbow smacked into the shoulder of this blonde chick, big blue eyes, and she mumbled something like _I will_ _stop it_ or _you will stop it_ and elbowed him back, but her heart didn't seem to be in it. Finally she just rolled over to her right kind of angrily.

She rolled over so fast that all of her long blonde hair that was still wet (no power, only two towels) flopped in the face of this guy with a scraggly graying beard. After it smacked him a couple times he was almost awake, sort of spitting wet blonde hair out of his mouth and trying to block it with his arm. And finally he just growled some really nasty words, the kind you don't expect the FBI's finest to say, and rolled to his right.

And when he did, the worst of the stinky blankets fell across the face of this foxy brunette and she cussed and pushed the blanket away and made _ptui, ptui_ noises and nailed him a good one with one of her elbows then rolled over real violently and her knee landed hard on the knee of the grouch in the suit.

He had what I guess you could call a "big city vocabulary," too, and after he had rubbed his knee and growled something about some idiot woman, chief somebody, a couple of times, he snarled a few more juicy curses and rolled to the right.

And damned if his free hand didn't smack this redhead right upside the head, and she said something really nasty (I think about how she was gonna lynch him?) and rubbed her eyes and rolled as far away from the grouch as she could and slammed smack into the last guy on the chain, this African-American guy with a bald head.

And Lordy, could he turn the room blue with his unhappy talk! Then he kind of apologized, I guess he has a baby girl or something at home? And the redhead asked for chocolate? And he growled and asked what time it was and rolled to the right.

And this whole thing, from paws to far wall, repeated itself several times during the night.

You told me not to interfere with the agents in any way, but just to observe and to be there if they asked for anything. So I was there and I did observe. But they didn't ask for anything at all.

Anyhow, that's how, when Captain Farrell showed up in the morning all the agents were bunched up in this stinky little pile along the right-side wall.

Phaedra, on the other hand, was all sprawled out luxuriously right in front of the fire, with her belly exposed and her motor running so loud I could hear it from where I sat.

Respectfully submitted and I'll write it all up officially when I get back on duty,

Ranger Oberon :)

Storm Tower Station

Heather Mountain National Park


End file.
